


Tomorrow is Ours to Win or Lose

by TheLifeOfEmm



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brick fic, Card Games, Fix-It of Sorts, Forced Intimacy, Gambling, Gambling for Favors, M/M, Nothing tremendously tragic happens though the possibility is there, Post-Seine of Sorts, Suicidal Thoughts, The Sewer and its Surprises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 09:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16059842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLifeOfEmm/pseuds/TheLifeOfEmm
Summary: In which the combined foresight of M. le Prefect Gisquet and a wayward beam of moonlight conspire to alter the course of events.Or, in which Inspector Javert is not a betting man.





	Tomorrow is Ours to Win or Lose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akatonbo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akatonbo/gifts).



> So although the Yami no Matsuei poker game AU was not _technically_ one of your official prompts, you _did_ bring it up in #martingale within days of prompts going out, and between it being a sort of forced intimacy trope and how excited you were about it, I decided it was fair game. ;) Also threw in a heavy dose of brick!fic with splashes of post-Seine and fix-it elements for good measure.
> 
> Disclaimers: I cannot play poker, much less the historical French precedent to poker. Research was done, opinions were asked, and any and all remaining butchery of the rules is, as they say, my bad. 
> 
> I was so, so pleased with my assignment, you were a delight to write for. I just hope this is something you enjoy, and if for any reason it is not, please let me know and I will happily write you some other thing. Here's to shipping Valvert like the postage is free!

Inspector Javert walked at a mechanical pace down the side of the quay. It was mid-afternoon; under the beating sun, the city of Paris felt stifled, as if the sun, like the National Guard, was intent on taking no prisoners. Occasionally, the distant crack of gunfire could be heard down the winding side streets, but the Inspector paid it no heed. His attention was fixated upon the figure before him, which he followed at a distance in tireless pursuit. When the figure slowed, so did he, and when it increased its pace, Javert set his own to match.

It had come about in the long hours following his release from the barricade that Javert made his way to the station house, there to deliver his report to M. Gisquet, the Prefect of Police. He had been brief and to the point, and had accepted none of Gisquet’s concern for his health, insisting that he be allowed to carry out his duty to the letter. Though his business as informant was concluded, there remained the matter of his other assignment, and in the aftermath of the insurrection, no-one else was equipped to pursue a motley cast of criminals who might use the disorder to slip through the net of the police if they were not run to ground at once.

Such was the argument Javert gave the Prefect, and so it was that he, with the blessing of his superior, had gone on with neither sleep nor peace of mind to tail this figure along the bank of the River Seine. The figure was not an unfamiliar one. There could be no question that Javert was good at what he did, and he possessed a certain skill for recognizing those physiognomic traits which were harder to disguise than one’s face or hair. He could tell much about a man from his posture, the way he walked, or the presence of a slight limp. On this occasion, he had picked out the skulking swagger of his mark, checked it against the height and build of that self-same silhouette, and pieced together the picture of a man called Thénardier.

Thénardier was both a con and a fraud. He had served time in La Force, but succeeded at escaping. He was frequently found in the company of the band of brigands known as the Patron-Minette, and they too were in and out of prison, with an absolute disregard for authority. Javert had been tasked with investigating a group of malefactors believed to loiter near the Bridge of Jena; well, there was the bridge, and here was Thénardier, which was confirmation enough that his time was not being wasted.

In this, the Inspector was fortunate. His argument to the Prefect had been entirely factual in its contents, but it omitted a not-insignificant detail, one which the Inspector was scarcely comfortable dwelling on even in the privacy of his own thoughts. That detail was simply this: Javert was in dire need of a distraction. He would have accepted any task he was offered if it kept him busy, moving like a well-oiled cog in the great machine of the French empire; it was just his luck that this assignment had about it a slight element of danger, of the sort that honed his focus into a single brilliant point of concentration. So long as the adrenaline of the chase was thrumming in his veins, there was no need to think on the past forty-eight hours, and all that had transpired within them.

At that moment, Thénardier veered to the side. The streets bordering the river had about them a particular architectural quality useful to carriage drivers and fishermen alike; in between the arching stone bridges, the high walls of the quay tapered down into a secondary path, an embankment which descended to the low gravel bed at the water’s edge, where a sweating horse could stop long enough to drink, or a man could haul his dinghy out of the river. It was toward this walkway that Thénardier turned, and Javert redirected himself accordingly.

It should be noted that there were no other courses along the river which one might take; the walkway went down to the beach and back up to the street with little intercession, and the wall of the quay cut the beach off on one side, while the Seine made a barrier on the other. To continue forward along the beach would do Thénardier no good, for he would find that it soon ended in the solid stone abutment belonging to the Bridge of Jena. Perhaps he hoped that the Inspector was an inattentive officer who would not notice him disappear off the quay; in this case, he would be sorely disappointed, for Javert had no intention of losing his quarry.

Lengthening his stride, Javert closed the gap between himself and Thénardier considerably, such that he could make out the dingy plum waistcoat beneath a fraying suit jacket, but still he did not approach close enough to apprehend the man. Like a rat returning to its hidey-hole, the Inspector did not doubt that if he continued to follow quietly, he would soon learn the whereabouts of not one but an entire nest of scoundrels.

Thénardier seemed to have noticed he was still being followed. He picked up his pace slightly, enough to make it onto the beach with a harried, shuffling gait, and then he was moving along the beach away from the path and toward the bridge. Javert stifled a smirk. Wherever Thénardier thought of going, he would quickly find himself cornered. The old con did not seem terribly concerned by this, however. He pushed forward down the bank, skirting a rubbish pile and disappearing briefly from the Inspector’s view.

Javert broke out into a light jog, gravel crunching underfoot as he fell into the easy, loping gait of a hunting dog pursuing a lamed bird. He rounded the rubbish pile, drawing his truncheon from under his arm, only to stop short in astonishment.

Thénardier had vanished.

The Inspector could not deny that he was shaken by this. For a long moment, he stood staring between the quay wall and the bridge and the dark waters of the Seine as if it were all some sort of cosmic joke played at his expense. If he had been a man prone to any superstition, he might have expressed that there was a bad star in the sky, to explain all the turmoil of recent hours. That was when the Inspector came to notice a grate in the wall of the quay, and immediately he recalled some words Gisquet had spoken to him on a whim.

Approaching the grating, Javert recognized its thick iron bars and prison lock as belonging to the government and its system, such as it was, of waste management. That is to say, the Inspector had happened across an entrance to the sewer, the outlet from whence it dumped its load of festering sludge into the river. There was only a trickle of muck issuing forth on that afternoon, for which he was grateful, but as he drew closer, Javert was struck by the enormity of the stench. Anyone who would willingly seek out the sewer as a place to hide was either desperate, or else substantially lacking in their sense of smell. Perhaps both.

The Inspector squinted at the padlock. He had expected to find it forced or otherwise broken open, but it looked instead to be in good condition, and shut fast. Once more he was stymied, and he frowned heavily as he considered this development.

At last, his gruff voice said aloud, “Well, this is fine! A government key!”

For it could only have been that Thénardier was in possession of just such an implement, the better with which to evade arrest. Gisquet, however, was no fool, and Javert felt the embers of his pride flare to life at that, for the Prefect had not forgotten the existence of the outlet. Digging deep into his pockets, he felt for the object Gisquet had entrusted him. A sudden passing fear caused Javert to wonder if perhaps the insurgents had taken it when they searched him, but no; his fingers brushed upon a thin metal profile, and the Inspector withdrew an iron skeleton key.

This he inserted into the padlock and turned a quarter-turn. The tumblers gave way, and the padlock clicked open. Wrinkling his nose against the smell, Javert stepped through the opening. He paused a moment more to lock the grate shut behind him; how embarrassing it would be if some ruffian were allowed to slip past him and escape out an open door!

Then the Inspector gathered himself and followed Thénardier into the endless nightfall of the sewers.

***

Thénardier’s path was not difficult to trace. The space between when the man gave him the slip on the beach and when the Inspector entered the sewer passage was small, and Thénardier, confident he had left his pursuer behind, was making little effort to move stealthily. It was therefore a simple matter to tail after him out of sight, tracking the sound of footsteps and the occasional gleeful chuckle.

There were bodies scattered there in the muck, some bearing the uniform of National Guardsmen, and others the ramshackle garb of the proletariat. It did not come as a surprise; the Guard had been sent underground to flush out any remaining pockets of rebellion, and there were bound to have been skirmishes. Whenever he came upon one such a corpse, Javert was careful to pick his way around and leave it undisturbed. From the snatches he caught of Thénardier muttering aloud to himself, the man held no such reservations; it was with a strong sense of disgust that Javert surmised he was looting the bodies.

Deeper and deeper underground did Thénardier lead him. The darkness was nearly complete, and it was only the distant grey light filtering through the sporadic hole or access hatch that kept him from losing his bearings and falling from the service walk into the filthy trench below. The walls were slick with a substance Javert did not care to name, and he tried to avoid touching them wherever possible. Once, a rat ran over his boot. The Inspector grimaced, holding back a curse that threatened to spill out and shatter the quiet.

It was around the same moment in which it dawned on Javert that he no longer knew where he was that the footsteps ahead of him came to a stop. He had arrived at a junction, the path diverging both left and right, and whichever way Thénardier had turned, the Inspector’s ears were not keen enough to pick out the sound. To choose a direction and continue blindly was a mistake; he could stray from the path, forget his way, and become truly lost in the maze. He waited. Perhaps the con had simply stopped to pick another dead man’s pockets.

Straining his ears, Javert listened for a cough, a scuffle, a crass word. There was the echo of dripping water, and somewhere far above the rattle of a passing carriage, but no other sign of life, not down there amid the gloaming dark. What an ending that would make of him, if in losing himself in the sewers, he had allowed his prey to escape capture as well. Just as he was beginning to think it might be wiser to settle in and wait until Thénardier or some other scoundrel returned, Javert caught the distant sound of a stone clattering away to the left, as if kicked out from under the heel of a boot.

Confident that he at last had caught the scent, the Inspector edged his way into the left-hand passage, scanning up and down the length of the tunnel. There was a sharp bend not far ahead, and he could not make out what was around the corner, but otherwise the way was bare. Stooping, creeping along, Javert approached the bend warily, lest he betray himself to anyone concealed on the other side, but no-one emerged to confront him. Instead, all was deceptively quiet as he peered past the corner into the space beyond.

The passage did not continue much farther; it extended only perhaps another twenty meters before it ended in a bricked-over wall. Inside was, if anything, darker yet than the rest of the sewer, alive with shadows that twisted in Javert’s line of sight and played tricks on his vision. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, however, he grew certain the passage was empty; perhaps in his eagerness, he was imagining noise where there was none.

That was when the Inspector picked out a murky shape slumped against the back wall. It did not appear to be rubble, and so, wrapping a hand more tightly around the shaft of his truncheon, he stalked forward. As he approached, the figure did not move, and Javert frowned. Had he come upon someone sleeping? He looked closer, and he realized his mistake, stopping with a huff of irritation. It was the body of another National Guardsman shot in the head, and by the state of him, it seemed unlikely the man had died recently. He was hearing things after all.

Then there was a sound Javert could not mistake. As he stood squinting into the gloom, he heard behind him the click of a gun being cocked.

“I would not do that, if I were you,” Javert said, turning slowly. “I am an Inspector First Class. Many men have aimed a pistol at me, and all have regretted it.”

“I know who you are, Monsieur le Inspector,” said a voice, and Thénardier stepped forth out of the shadows. He held his pistol steady, aimed unerringly at Javert’s person, and his finger lay too close to the trigger. “And I do not doubt you know who I am.”

“Thénardier,” Javert sneered. “I am placing you under arrest. You are trespassing upon government property, and I suspect that additional investigation of this quadrant will reveal other misdemeanors to add to your record.”

“You are placing me under arrest?” Thénardier repeated, every word laced with a venomous arrogance. “I think not. Do not forget, I am the one holding a gun, and today it will not misfire.”

Javert had already sized him up. The man had a slight inclination towards his right; Javert could dash to the left, and Thénardier would be disadvantaged. If he fired, he would miss. At worst, Javert might be dealt a glancing blow to the shoulder. It was a calculated risk.

He was prepared to take that chance, his gloved hand flexing into a fist even as the other raised his truncheon, but then Thénardier beckoned down the tunnel from whence he had come, and Javert was brought up short by the arrival of what looked to be five more hulking figures. The nearest one raised the cover on a lantern, and in the sudden orange glare, the Inspector thought he recognized something in that collection of silhouettes. At that, a shudder passed through him. The Inspector’s future took on a grimmer cast if Thénardier had recouped some members of the Patron-Minette, miserable louts who had particular cause to despise him. It was also true that he was, now, outnumbered.

Still, it was not as though Thénardier knew that. Javert allowed himself a feral grin, his teeth showing in a manner which even the lawful found unsettling. “You are mistaken if you think you are leaving this place at liberty,” he announced, looking evenly at the lot of them. “There are fifty gendarmes awaiting my command in this part of the sewer, and they will have you in irons presently. Wiser villains would concern themselves with running.”

At that, the collection of Thénardier’s hired hands shifted uncomfortably, looking about for the looming shape of police in the tunnels, but Thénardier only laughed.

“That is a better bluff than I expected of you, Inspector,” he said, “but it is a bluff all the same. You entered the sewer alone. There are no gendarmes awaiting your signal. You have only your cudgel, we have guns.” Javert could hear the smile in his voice as Thénardier concluded, “Your situation is quite hopeless.”

Motioning to the others, the con said, “Grab him, do not let him escape,” and the five surged forward, galvanized by Thénardier’s speech and the promise of having their revenge.

Javert’s eyes darted to and fro, looking for a way out. Behind him, the shaft was closed. Ahead of him, the six miscreants blocked the exit. He saw plainly now that he had been led into a trap; Thénardier must have been aware of him since the moment he passed through the grate on the Seine, and had led the Inspector on enough of a chase to upset his sense of direction before cornering him. The only thing to do was to take them head-on.

Charging forward, Javert swung his truncheon at the first man with a ferocity usually concealed beneath his woolen greatcoat. The heavy nightstick connected with its target, and there was a howl of pain as the man reared back. Triumphant, the Inspector took a second swing, this time at a figure closing in from his right, but even as the solid wood connected with flesh and bone, another hand grabbed him around his queue, dragging him backward by the hair.

He struggled; the one who had grappled him was shorter, and the angle of his reach was forcing Javert’s head back. Stomping, Javert brought his boot heel down hard on top of his attacker’s foot, and the hand holding him loosened as the man grunted. Javert wrenched himself free, spinning to face his other opponents, but they were already bearing down upon him, one on either side.

The first grabbed him by the wrist, twisting his arm around into the small of his back until he had no choice but to release his hold on the cudgel; the weapon fell uselessly from his hand, clattering to the stone below. The other took the opportunity to land a blow to the Inspector’s stomach, and he doubled over, retching, as pain blossomed across his abdomen. Then he felt the cold press of steel at his temple, and he knew what that meant. He heard in his head the unwanted echo of a voice he knew - _“I ask a reward - to blow this man’s brains out myself”_ \- as well as the all-too vivid image that it had inspired earlier in his imagination.

Javert did not resist as his legs were kicked out from under him. He fell forward, hitting the ground hard on his knees, just as another sharp kick landed on his ribs. Javert stifled his groan as best he could; that would leave an elaborate bruise. Then he heard Thénardier speak, and he forced himself to concentrate.

“Tie his hands,” ordered Thénardier. “And put a blindfold over his eyes. We will take him back to our patch and deal with him there.”

As rough hands bound his wrists behind his back, Javert rested quietly on his knees. Every breath hurt, and even if he had successfully twisted out of their grasp, it was not as though they could not beat him again into submission. Better, then, to wait for opportunity to present itself. And if they shot him, the Inspector could not pretend the idea was wholly unwelcome. A coarse fabric was tied over his face, obscuring his vision, and then he was dragged back to his feet by the collar.

“Well, bring him along, then,” said Thénardier, and someone shoved Javert between the shoulders. He stumbled forward, eliciting sniggers, but while the indignity stung, there was not time to dwell on it; no sooner had he recovered his balance than someone else took a handful of his coat and half-guided, half-dragged him back out into the open passage. It was all he could do keep his footing.

Led like a beast for slaughter, the Inspector’s jaw worked. Humiliation, torture, even his own death - all those things could be endured. In the end, it was sound and fury, signifying nothing next to the fracture at his core. That he did not know could be borne, not indefinitely, but it was out of his hands. The straightforwardness of his situation was almost a bitter sort of comfort, and Javert reflected on that irony as the dark closed in around him.

***

When they came to a stop, there was something different about the light.

They had walked an indeterminate distance, venturing so far from where they started that Javert could never have found his way back, even were he at liberty to try. But just as he was beginning to wonder if they meant to tow him along until he collapsed, his captors slowed, and the blackness, which had been absolute behind the blindfold, lessened. The Inspector could make out a yellowish glow through the fabric, and the flicker of it led him to surmise it was torchlight.

Low murmurs passed between members of the group; from the scraps of slang and obscene suggestions he caught even in his weary, faraway state, Javert could deduce that they had arrived at the villains’ lair. The smell, he thought, was no better than it had been anywhere else. Before the Inspector could attempt to orient himself, however, he was again taken by the collar and coerced inside with the help of a gun barrel. A hard shove forced him down into an uncomfortable wooden chair, and then swift hands practiced in the art of making a prisoner bound his legs together with a cord.

Through it all, Javert made no noise of pain or protest, even as the cord dug deeply into skin already raw and chafed from his hours tied on the barricade. He might have been a statue carved from stone for all that he responded.

As knots were drawn tight and he was left to sit and await the sentence due to him, Javert listened, allowing that one sense to tell him what his others could not. The creak of springs suggested a cot in the corner, perhaps more than one. There was also the telltale scrape of chairs moving across the floor, the pop of a cork being drawn from a bottle, and the muttering of Thénardier’s men holding a conference. Javert knew enough of argot to follow the thread of conversation; it centered around what was to be done with their hostage.

Then it seemed that a decision was reached. The low voices quieted, and feet padded across the floor to stop in front of the Inspector’s chair.

“Well?” Javert asked without inflection or emotion. “What will you do?”

“I must humbly beg your pardon, Monsieur le Inspector,” replied Thénardier’s reedy tones. “But we shall not be able to shoot you just yet. You see, the National Guard linger still in the tunnels, and the echo of a discharge might invite them this way to investigate. It shall be another day, perhaps two, until we can get on with that happy matter.”

Behind the blindfold, Javert lifted an eyebrow. “There is nothing to stop you cutting my throat,” he stated, a challenge which he had lately extended to more persons than just Thénardier. That no-one had yet done so, he put down to cowardice.

Thénardier tutted. “I am certain,” he replied, “that were Montparnasse here, he would be only too delighted to accept your generous offer. I, however, do not much care for the mess.”

“I was thinking,” he went on, “that we might have a little entertainment instead. What say you, Inspector?”

Javert raised his shoulders in the semblance of a shrug. “I am in no position to prevent you making sport of me if you so desire,” he said. “Though I would remind you, screams may attract the Guard’s attention as readily as gunfire.”

“You misunderstand.” Thénardier moved closer, his voice oily as a snake’s. “We are not savages here, merely entrepreneurs who tire of the same routine. There are many long, cold hours to be spent underground. It would be good to have a change of pace.”

By then, he had moved so close that their legs brushed. There was a tug at the material covering the Inspector’s eyes, and Thénardier pulled loose the blindfold. It fell from Javert’s sight to reveal the chamber where he had been brought, becoming rather cramped with all of its seven occupants. There was a table beside him littered with grease stains, and just as he had envisioned, the Patron-Minette were crowded on a grouping of cots in the corner. One man was smoking a cigar, though it was nearly impossible to tell next to the overwhelming stench of human waste.

Thénardier skirted the table, taking a seat on the opposite side. Then he leaned his chin on his hand, saying nothing, but staring intently at Javert.

When Thénardier had been staring for several minutes, Javert gnashed his teeth.

“Draw a portrait,” came the acerbic suggestion. “It will last you longer.”

Thénardier was unbothered by the man’s spleen; if anything, it seemed to amuse him that his prisoner was so stoic in the face of his captors. He leaned forward in his chair, reaching past a flagon of ale to tap meaningfully on the surface of the table. “I have a proposition to make,” he said. “What would Monsieur say to indulging in a little game?”

The Inspector’s eyebrows knit together. “A game?” he repeated.

Giving him a sly look, Thénardier asked, “Are you a betting man, Inspector?”

“No.”

It was true; Javert possessed few in the way of vices, and gambling was not one of them.

“A great tragedy,” Thénardier sighed. “It would have passed the time admirably, at least until we are ready to be rid of you.”

Choosing to ignore the implicit threat, Javert said, “I have no money to wager, and I would not accept a sou of yours. Betting is therefore pointless.”

“Ah,” said Thénardier, “but a man can wager more than money alone. For instance, suppose I were willing to bet your freedom - it would be no great hardship on my part to take you back into the tunnels and turn you loose. If you are supremely fortunate, you may even find your way out of the sewer eventually.”

Javert narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “That does not change the fact that I have nothing to wager in return.”

“Do not be so sure,” Thénardier said, a disquieting confidence in his words. “I feel certain an ante could be devised for you.”

Three days ago, the Inspector would have laughed in Thénardier’s face and refused. Two days ago, he would have ordered the old con to shoot him immediately, just as he had ordered the blond student with the carbine. Now, however, there was hesitation in him. Much as Javert might have wanted it otherwise, doubt clouded his heart with questions that threw all his old conviction into disarray. There was a place he needed to go - _to be sure_ , he told himself - and he could not do so, could not lay that conundrum to rest, should he be shot tied to his chair.

If he lost, he would be no worse off. And if he won, perhaps he would have the opportunity to settle a debt. The prospect of dying alone, lost in the belly of the sewers, also held a certain dismal appeal. He wet his lips.

“Very well,” Javert said at last. “I accept.”

Thénardier smiled, an expression which was as hideous for the state of his teeth as for its implications.

“Do you know bouillotte?”

He did not.

“Yes,” answered Javert.

In fairness to the Inspector, the man was not entirely ignorant of what the game entailed. A lifetime ago, there had been other convict-guards who played it in the prisons when they grew bored of their lot, and Javert had inadvertently come to absorb some knowledge of the rules. But that time was long past, and he was skeptical that his half-remembered stratagem would do him any good in this. Still, he was not about to show weakness in front of Thénardier.

“Excellent.” Thénardier hopped out of his chair, crossing the room on bowed legs to remove a box from under one of the cots. This he returned with, cracking it open to withdraw a deck of cards. “You shall bet against me, and may the best man win.”

“We cannot play bouillotte with only two players,” Javert objected. “Why not draughts instead?” That game, he was at least confident he knew the rules.

Thénardier gestured at where the others sat in the corner, watching the proceedings through drink-reddened eyes. “Boulatruelle can deal for us, but I trust you do not want him to play,” he said, adding with a pointed look, “You mightn’t care for his idea of a wager.” Then the con paused. “Unless by that you mean you do not wish to play at all, in which case you can dismiss any hope of leaving this room alive.”

“That is not what I meant,” snapped Javert. “Very well, let Boulatruelle deal.”

“And make a clean job of it,” Thénardier added as his man got stiffly to his feet. “There is no place in a test of wits for a cheat. I am a man of learning, though perhaps the Inspector would not know it. I shall defeat this agent of the government with my own skill.”

Boulatruelle stopped at the side of the table. Javert looked at him askance; he was a tall man, barrel-chested, with short-cropped hair and a scar near his eyebrow. The Inspector had arrested the villain before, but plainly Boulatruelle was another who had found his way free of prison. He had the hands of a laborer, and the scarred wrists of a galley slave. This Javert noted as Boulatruelle handled the deck, his thick fingers surprisingly nimble. The man pulled out a selection of cards, until the deck numbered only sixteen, and then those sixteen he shuffled.

Looking back at Thénardier, Javert said, “I cannot hold my cards with my wrists tied.”

“A fair observation,” conceded Thénardier. “Boulatruelle, if you would.”

Boulatruelle slapped the newly-shuffled deck down on the tabletop and circled around behind the Inspector’s chair, drawing a dull pocket knife from inside his trousers. Javert heard the snick of the blade opening, and then he felt the smooth edge of it press against his pulse as Boulatruelle grunted and tugged, tearing through the cords binding him.

It was the second time in recent memory someone had cut his bonds. Although on the surface the situations were much the same, his fate left to the mercy of a convict, Javert was faced with the terrible knowledge that underneath, they were not the same at all. Valjean had not killed him. Valjean had, perhaps, never wanted to.

He was brought back to the present by Thénardier, who as Boulatruelle straightened said, “Bear in mind, Inspector, my compatriots remain well-armed. Do not think to try anything, or we shall take our chances with the Guard.”

Javert said nothing in reply. His hands were free; already, this risk was proving its worth.

“I am a generous man,” Thénardier continued. “Let us say that I start the bidding, and you may think on what you would like to do.”

The Inspector gave a single affirmative jerk of his head.

“If I win -” Thénardier grinned widely. “- Monsieur le Inspector will remain our guest here for howsoever long it pleases us. No misguided attempts at escape, or resistance. I am told your word is good, sir, we shall see if this is so.”

Then Thénardier gestured, and Javert supposed it was his turn. He bent forward, looking his captor dead in the eye. “If I should win, then you will set me free of here. My word is good - it is yours that is suspect.”

Thénardier waved this away as Boulatruelle dealt them each their cards: a first, a second, and a third.

“My word is good enough, Monsieur. And anyway - you are already playing.”

Javert could not argue that.

Completing the deal, Boulatruelle set the stack in the center of the table and turned over the topmost card. The king of spades looked sternly up at them.

Then Thénardier, just as Javert had known he would, pulled another scheme out of his bag of tricks. Thumbing his hand without yet picking it up, the con announced, “I should like to make a _carré_.”

Javert glowered. Whatever blind bet Thénardier thought to add to the pot, there could be little doubt it would spell ill for the Inspector.

The villain’s eyes glittered as he spoke. “If I win, you will tell us all that the police know of our movements. You were given a key, you were told where to search, and I would hear the details in full.”

Javert stifled a snort. What he knew was negligible; even under duress, the most he might be made to give away was the nature of his assignment. The details Monsieur le Prefect kept to himself, as was his right. If Thénardier thought he stood to gain something by that, he was mistaken.

“Well, Inspector, what’ll it be? Will you fold, call, or raise?”

Javert bared his teeth in a simulacrum of a grin. “I’ll raise,” he replied. “If I win, you shall return the key you stole off my person, and the one you had already in your possession.”

If Javert expected Thénardier to be angered by this, he discovered himself mistaken. Instead, the devil’s smile only stretched wider.

“I see you are getting the gist of this, Monsieur,” he said. “So be it, I will take your bet, and I will raise it twofold.”

He tilted his head, and Javert understood then that this was what the man had intended all along, to goad the Inspector into accepting his smaller wagers until Thénardier could shoehorn him into agreeing to something truly despicable.

“My wife and eldest are dead. Prostitutes are costly. The men do demand their entertainment, Inspector, I think you can understand that.”

Javert regarded him uncomprehendingly. “What are you suggesting?” he asked.

“When I win...” The coyness was gone from Thénardier’s expression. It was replaced by the cold satisfaction of a rat which finds its teeth buried in the neck of a tomcat. “When I win, you will keep the beds warm, and make every effort to please. Who knows, it may even work out in your favor - a suitable performance, and you need not be killed so quickly.”

The Inspector stared. He stared, and then he blinked, his brow furrowing. Thénardier’s meaning was difficult to misinterpret, but the idea that it was meant to apply to him, Javert, was one he could not quite wrap his head around. Perhaps it was an elaborate joke, one made in singularly poor taste, and Thénardier was silently laughing at him for his confusion.

“You think that I would...?” Javert trailed off, turning to glare at Boulatruelle, who had cackled loudly.

Thénardier’s gaze never wavered as he continued to smile slightly.

“No,” he said. “I think you would not. Your only hope is to fold, unless you mean to surprise us.” He laced his fingers together on the tabletop, looking quite pleased with himself.

Inspector Javert then did some very quick thinking. To fold was to concede defeat, though what was there to lose if he capitulated now? A scrap of dignity, perhaps, but his pride had suffered worse blows of late. Elsewise, he would be in much the same position as when he had started. It was the safest option, and clearly it was the route Thénardier believed he would take.

And yet, if he gave in having risked nothing, then why had he agreed to play to begin with? There was much he stood to gain if he won, perhaps more if he called the con’s wager. Of course, that was all assuming Thénardier kept his word. But even if he did not, at least Javert could be certain he had done everything in his power to carry out his assignment.

Then again, a voice in his head whispered, what if he played and lost? There was an equal chance of that, and he could not discount the possibility. Win or lose, it was not as though the Patron-Minette’s men could not force him to cooperate if they chose, and doubtless they would derive some enjoyment from doing so, but it was an entirely different matter to make a whore of himself willingly. If he agreed, he would not go back on his word; it was the one thing he had left.

Neither man had yet looked at his cards; Thénardier did not know he had won, he simply thought Javert a coward. Well, Javert was many things, but a coward was not one of them. As his captor was beginning to grow impatient, the Inspector fixed him with a look of the sort that reduced most men, criminal or otherwise, to trembling.

“I will call your bluff,” he spat. “And your bet. If I win, then you, _Thénardier_ , will turn yourself in and accompany me to the nearest police depot. Now,” he added with a mirthless grin, “are those terms you will accept, or would you prefer just to let me go?”

Thénardier squinted. “You are very sure of your hand, Monsieur,” he said, and for the first time there was a trace of wariness in his eyes. Licking his lips, he passed a thoughtful hand over his cards. Slowly, he nodded. “As you say, then. I think, however, that you will regret making that bargain.”

“Entirely possible,” Javert said calmly. There was a curious numbness spreading through his veins; as he reached out to grasp at his cards, he found he felt nothing whatsoever. Turning the pieces of pasteboard around to face him, the Inspector looked over his hand.

He was holding an ace and two nines. Two kings would have been better, and better still would have been three of a kind, but it was by no means a bad combination. It was not inconceivable that he had won.

Then Javert saw the smirk spreading over Thénardier’s face, and his stomach sank.

“Well, well,” said Thénardier. “How fortune favors the bold.” Lifting his head to meet Javert’s eyes, he said, “I’m afraid this is the end, Inspector.”

He laid his hand down flat on the tabletop. Three kings looked up from the varnished wood. The card in the center made four of a kind. One could not do any better than that in bouillotte.

The devil added smugly, “A _brélan carré_. You lose.”

Dazed, Javert set down his cards opposite Thénardier’s. He had lost. He had lost, and he would suffer the consequences. This assignment of M. Gisquet’s had become a most effective distraction indeed. It was difficult to concern himself with what had passed on the Rue Mondétour when Boulatruelle was eyeing him like that - cold, amused, hungry.

Even as Boulatruelle left the side of the table to come closer, Javert’s fingers tightened on the seat of his chair until he could feel his knuckles turning white with strain. He had given his word, and they would only take more satisfaction from it if he resisted. Boulatruelle grabbed a fistful of the Inspector’s lapel, yanking him upright so they stood nose to nose. Javert’s legs were still bound together; if Boulatruelle let go, he would lose his balance and fall, but that concerned him less than the leer on the man’s face, or the way he was slowly pulling apart the Inspector’s cravat.

The tension in the air was nearly a physical presence, silent but for the harsh breathing that Javert came to recognize as his own. He nearly cringed when Boulatruelle undid the first button of his greatcoat, only to catch himself and keep still. He was aware through the fog in his head that the others had left the corner, closing ranks to watch the show they were promised. Javert did not look at them; he kept his gaze fixed on a point past Boulatruelle’s shoulder.

Then the Inspector’s greatcoat hung loose on his frame, and the road-mender’s hand curled around his hip in mockery of a caress. Javert could feel the man’s fetid air on his neck; truly, he thought, he could sink no lower. It was an ignominy of the sort a man such as him deserved.

The sound of pounding feet broke the quiet. Boulatruelle raised his head as the rest of the Patron-Minette pivoted to look; someone had come sprinting in from the passage outside. In that moment of reprieve, Javert shut his eyes.

“Dupont,” he heard Thénardier say. “What is it?”

“There is a man,” answered the one called Dupont, panting. “In the northwest corridor. He is moving this way. Thought you’d like to know.”

“A man?” Thénardier’s tones were calculating as he said, “It is indeed a fortuitous evening - we must have revolutions more often! Look how all the odds and ends are swept to our doorstep for the taking.”

Then he said, “Boulatruelle, put the officer down. Tie him tightly, replace the blindfold. We go into the sewers - perhaps we shall bring back another friend for the good Inspector to play at cards!”

Raucous laughter met that statement, and Javert scarcely had time to prepare before Boulatruelle dropped him roughly into the chair. Hands grappled his arms, pulling his wrists tight once more behind his back, and the feel of the rope burned against the bruises masked by his shirtsleeves, but Javert was not thinking about that. He was very deliberately not thinking of anything at all. He pushed away fear, pushed away suspicion, pushed away even that part of him which wondered at Thénardier’s new target. Convict or innocent, Javert had a duty to perform, to arrest or to protect - He had a _duty_ \- but he could not carry it out. He had given his word. He would sit there, and die there, and he would never know whether the address he had committed to memory were false.

The chamber disappeared as the same cloth from before was drawn taut across his eyes, and the Inspector was left only to listen as the brigands went out into the passage beyond.

He thought of the hapless fool wandering the sewers, and the ambush they were stumbling into. He thought of what was to be done to him when Thénardier returned.

The last of the footsteps died away.

Only when absolute silence had fallen did Javert allow his shoulders to begin to shake at last.

 

* * *

 

Jean Valjean was exhausted. He had, of course, known more than his share of fatigue in his life, and yet not once in all his years could he recall having been quite so sapped of strength as he was in that moment. Behind him, the quagmire of the _fontis_. Before him, the grating onto the bank of the Seine. He could smell fresh air. But as if for no reason other than to delight in his torment, the grating was locked fast and barred his way, and for all that he tried to break his way through the iron bars or force the double lock, he could not. All his efforts were in vain.

Collapsing in despair, Valjean curled in upon himself, resting upon the banquette and allowing his head to fall against the stone wall of the sewer outlet. The boy was living still, which was the one shred of grace granted him since first he entered those forsaken tunnels, yet what did it matter? The way was blocked, there was no other. Marius would die, Valjean beside him, and Cosette would wonder all her life what had become of them both.

His breathing was ragged. When last had he slept? Was it possible that there was, somewhere above in Paris, a soft bed waiting for him to retire? No, Valjean thought. No, it was not possible, for even if he escaped the prison of the sewer, even if he returned Marius to his family, he remained a condemned man. It was almost too much to bear.

It was as he was thinking thus that a voice spoke out of the darkness.

“Half-shares.”

Valjean did not look up. He thought perhaps he had dreamed it.

The silence returned, until Valjean, recovering bit by bit some presence of mind, noticed before him a pair of bare feet. He raised his head. The feet were attached to legs, which were attached to a man, and the man was clad in a grimy blouse and a waistcoat. In his hand, he held his shoes, which he had removed to travel with greater stealth down length of the dank tunnel. Valjean gazed at this apparition, dumbfounded, until the apparition turned his head and Valjean caught sight of the man’s face in the dim light of the moon.

The man was well known to him. It was Thénardier, and he was a scoundrel. At once, Valjean dropped his head into the shadows, lest he be recognized.

“How are you going to manage to get out?” Thénardier inquired.

Valjean did not answer. Steadfastly, he looked away.

“It is impossible to pick the lock of that gate. But still, you must get out.”

“That is true,” Valjean allowed. If Thénardier were leading toward some point, it was better to let him get on with it.

“Well,” said Thénardier, lowering his voice and offering a meaningful look, “half-shares then.”

Whatever meaning the look was meant to convey, Valjean did not follow. “What do you mean by that?” he asked.

“You have killed this man - very well, I have the key. You did not kill him without looking to see what he had in his pockets. Give me my half, I’ll open the door for you.”

The way he spoke, furtively, and with the occasional backwards glance, conveyed quite plainly that Thénardier was not alone. There were perhaps other ruffians waiting nearby, and Thénardier had come out ahead of them. In mistaking Valjean for an assassin, he thought there was a profit to be made, one he did not wish to share. Well, he would be disappointed on that front, for Valjean had gone to the barricades without his pocketbook, but Thénardier had acquired a key. Moreover, he promised to let Valjean out.

There was no trusting the promises of that man’s ilk, but Valjean was desperate. He emptied his pockets, withdrawing a scattered assortment of coins. It amounted to little, and as Thénardier took the proffered bribe, he narrowed his eyes and muttered, “You knocked him over cheap.” It seemed he had forgotten his refrain of “half-shares,” for he pocketed the lot. Then he withdrew from his pocket a key, slender and forged of iron like the grate.

Valjean got heavily to his feet. Soon this ordeal would be over, his life forfeit, and Javert would see to it he was punished justly for all the years on the run. It brought him a certain calm to have so clear a vision of his future. He hoisted Marius over his shoulder, feeling the shallow rise and fall of his chest, even as Thénardier eyed the boy.

“You’ll want to weight that with stones before you throw him in the river,” the man said.

Maintaining his silence, Valjean merely turned his head to the exit.

Thénardier comprehended the unspoken instructions. He drew closer with the key as Valjean gazed longingly at the shine of water through the bars. For as long as it had been since he’d slept, it was longer still since he had quenched his thirst. Even the putrid water of the Seine would be a relief. His throat tasted of smoke and gunpowder, and his tongue had the quality of sandpaper.

It was that helpless look toward freedom which was his undoing. A stray beam of the fickle moonlight caught his face in turn, and Thénardier, who had for some time been squinting and straining to put a name to this assassin in the dark, let out a hoarse cry of recognition.

“Jean Valjean! As I live and breathe! Well, well, it is a night of surprises.”

Valjean flinched, instinctively turning to put himself between Marius and Thénardier, but Thénardier had no interest in what he assumed still to be a corpse. Instead he was regarding Valjean with a particular wily air, and Valjean braced himself for the inevitable demand to follow. The man would want to be paid, and paid well, but Valjean was not about to lead him back to the Rue de l’Homme Armé to fetch his banknotes. How best to give him the slip? So deep was he in thought that he scarcely realized Thénardier was speaking again.

“- arrangement,” finished Thénardier, and Valjean blinked.

“Eh?”

“I say, I am hopeful we can come to an arrangement. You see, you are not the first phantom to wander into these parts tonight. I have an offer to make - a wager, if you will.”

“What sort of offer?” Valjean inquired with great mistrust. He had experience with Thénardier and his offers; they rarely ended well for anyone involved.

“I have had come into my possession a certain individual with whom perhaps you are acquainted. This man, an instrument of the law, entered here seeking my apprehension, but found himself the one apprehended.” Thénardier leaned forward with a crafty smile. “The opportunity for revenge is a fleeting one, Valjean. And there is not a con in Paris who would turn down the opportunity to have their revenge on Inspector Javert.”

Under the layers of blood and filth, Valjean felt his face go white. So that was what had become of the Inspector; he had escaped the barricade, only to fall into Thénardier’s clutches. What might become of him there?

“Speak plainly,” said Valjean. “You have not told me yet what it is you want.”

“Plainly, then - you have a fortune. Do not attempt to deny this, we both know it to be true. What say you to a hand of cards? Win, and I shall humbly give the Inspector’s life to you to do with what you will. Lose, and I ask no more than what I asked the last fine evening we spoke. Two-hundred-thousand francs is surely not an unreasonable sum for a man of your means.”

Valjean pursed his lips. “That is not a fair exchange.”

With a grimace, Thénardier said, “Well, I’ll throw the key in as well. That is my final offer. Take it, or sit here and rot.”

When Valjean still did not reply, Thénardier’s tone grew sharper. “There are other ways to go about this, Monsieur. I have men I could call, but out of respect to a fellow citizen of the underworld, I am offering you this chance. Will you take it?”

Valjean heard him as though far away. Slung over his shoulder, Marius was fading. He would not last the night without the attentions of a doctor. And Javert... Valjean shuddered. Was God so moved to test him that He would send Valjean into the sewers so as to save not one, but two of his tormentors? Still, he could not rightly abandon the Inspector; as at the barricade, he would not buy his freedom with a man’s life, and Valjean knew well the sort of tortures Thénardier favored.  

“Fine, then,” he said faintly. “Let us play, but for those terms only. No more tricks, and no more bets. Do you think you can manage that?”

Adopting a wounded expression, Thénardier said, “Of course - I am a man of my word,” which did nothing to reassure Valjean at all.

Hesitating a moment, Valjean looked down at the boy he carried, bloodied and covered in nearly as much grime as Valjean himself, despite the man’s best efforts to keep him out of the quagmire. Thénardier followed the direction of his gaze, and thought he understood.

“Leave the body here,” he said. “If you win, you may come back and finish the job. The river is hungry, she will accept offerings at all hours. And if you lose... well, it will not really matter then, will it?”

Thénardier was right, even if he did not know why. Valjean laid Marius down gently on the pavement, surreptitiously feeling for a pulse as he did so. The skin of the boy’s wrist was cold and clammy, but there was a flutter still of life, and Valjean exhaled in relief. It was better for Marius that Thénardier thought him dead; a dead man could not be extorted.

Then he straightened. “Lead on,” said Valjean.

Thénardier inclined his head in the direction from which he had first approached, and Valjean followed him unfalteringly into the passage. He had misgivings, yes, many of them, but if he were forced to fight this man, Valjean did not doubt as to who would be the victor. And he knew also, deep in his heart, that he could never desert a soul in need, not when he had the power to help. For all his weariness, for all his despair, his resolve was not the sort to waver. Thénardier slid back into his shoes, taking the lead, and Valjean fell into step behind him.

As they walked, Thénardier let out a shrill whistle which Valjean took for some sort of signal. Sure enough, a number of dark silhouettes emerged from out of the shade, ringing about Valjean in the perversion of an escort. The silhouettes, however, kept their distance; it may have been that they were intimidated by Valjean’s bulk, or perhaps it was that they too recalled one fateful evening in a remote garret on the Boulevard de l’Hôpital, and all that had come to pass there.

Valjean paid them no heed. His contest was with Thénardier. It was not a contest he had any intention of losing; he could not, for any of their sakes.

***

The tunnels of the sewer twisted and turned, but Valjean took care to memorize their path. He would not be led astray, though given the circuitous nature of their route, such seemed Thénardier’s intent. At last, they arrived at a chamber lit from within by torches mounted to the brick walls. Once, it had been the intersection between several branching passages, but the rubble of a cave-in blocked one side and the rest were walled off, such that there remained only two ways in or out. Valjean supposed Thénardier was too clever to choose a hiding place with only one means of escape.

Inside, the gang had established a small fort. A stack of open crates rested against one wall, each one appearing to be filled with wine bottles. A couple of untidy cots were arranged in the back corner, and in the center was a wooden table surrounded by chairs. It smelled of piss and alcohol, but after the mire of the _fontis_ , Valjean scarcely noticed. What he did notice the very moment he entered was the room’s single other occupant, seated at the table with his hands behind his back and his legs bound together. It was unmistakably Javert, though a blindfold obscured part of his face, and he tensed visibly at the sound of footsteps.

Thénardier gestured to the table, upon which there was already a spread of cards, but Valjean looked only at the Inspector as he drew out a chair. At the barricade, Javert had been utterly calm, if not welcoming of his death, then certainly indifferent to it. Now, unless Valjean was much mistaken, there hung about him the wary effect of fear, carefully concealed but present nevertheless. There was no visible sign of injury, nor the telltale stench of burning meat that Valjean would have recognized anywhere, but something had to have occurred to work that change. Javert afraid was an unsettling thing, too human by far for the formidable Inspector, and the feeling which rose in Valjean’s breast was oddly protective. He sat, tearing his gaze away at last to fix instead upon Thénardier.

“The Inspector has lost at a game of bouillotte,” said Thénardier pleasantly, collecting the cards one by one off the tabletop. “You do know how to play?”

“Yes,” Valjean answered and watched as, at the sound of his voice, Javert gave a tremendous start, head swiveling to face in his direction. The set of his shoulders became more angry than uncertain at that, but the line of his mouth betrayed little of his thoughts otherwise.

Thénardier chuckled. “Ah, so you do know each other. I thought as much. Well then, Inspector, it might interest you to know that your future is once again a chip in the pot.”

Javert did not speak, nor even react at all. He was still faced towards Valjean as if compelled by some invisible force, though he could surely see nothing through the fabric. Was it that he still believed Valjean meant him harm? Or perhaps it merely frustrated the Inspector that he was the one bound, and could not clap his prey in irons at that very moment. Valjean fancied he could feel the man’s gaze despite the blindfold, heavy and piercing as ever in its intensity.

Deliberately, Valjean turned aside to face Thénardier again. He deftly snatched the cards from his adversary’s hands, and before Thénardier could protest, he added, “I will shuffle. The key?”

Thénardier reached slowly into his breast pocket, withdrawing the same sturdy key as before. This he placed in the center of the table, where he took the occasional covetous glance at it. With a placid air, Valjean split the deck and mixed it thoroughly. He and Cosette had played at this game many a time; there were only so many amusements to be found inside the house, and they had whiled away empty hours collecting piles of wooden chips. Not once, however, had Valjean played for anything of real worth, and now a man’s life was on the line.

“By the way,” said Thénardier, “there remains the matter that the Inspector lost - he had not yet given us his due when we left to meet you at the outlet. I am afraid that, even should you win, I have no choice but to hold him to his end of the bargain. It is only good sportsmanship, after all.”

Valjean glanced at Javert; what had the man been pressured into bargaining? He did not miss the way Javert winced slightly at Thénardier’s proclamation, nor the tightening of his jaw. It was that more than anything which caused Valjean to act; though he faced Thénardier, his eyes never left Javert’s face as he said, “And why not add that ‘chip’ to the pot as well?”

“What’s that?” Thénardier leaned forward with a frown. “What are you saying?”

Then Valjean did look at Thénardier, his expression of neutrality becoming a forced smile. “Why, it is very simple. Two-hundred thousand francs is a great deal of money. I do not feel as though I am getting its equal in favors. So, you can do this to even the score - wager what he owes you as well, and if I win, then you will likewise relinquish that claim over him.”

Thénardier stared. Then he began to laugh. “Well,” he said, “what say you to that, Inspector? Valjean here thinks to have you all to himself - but then, maybe you would prefer it!”

Valjean’s mouth thinned at the taunts. “Yes or no?” he asked. “I have put my all in - will you not do the same?”

Drumming his fingers on the table, Thénardier deliberated. “Fine,” he agreed, adding with a nasty sneer, “You will only lose anyway.”

“We shall see,” said Valjean, and he dealt each of them three cards.

Next he set the remainder of the deck in the center, and turned over the playing card on top. The nine of hearts was left showing.

Eagerly, Thénardier picked up his hand, looking the cards over with satisfaction.

“Ah well,” he sighed with false regret. “It was a noble effort, comrade, but I think you will have a hard time beating _this_.” So saying, he set his cards down before him, displaying three aces.

Valjean inclined his head. “It is a good hand,” he conceded. “Or it would be, if it were not in fact two aces and a king, the latter of which you hid up your sleeve when you thought I was not paying attention.”

Thénardier opened his mouth, his face turning red, but Valjean ignored him, picking up his own hand from the table.

“But it does not matter,” he said softly, scanning his cards. “Keep your aces.”

And Valjean laid down in front of him the nine of spades, the nine of clubs, and the nine of diamonds. Looking up, he added, “I think you will find that makes four of a kind in total.”

Thénardier’s face was well and truly scarlet. “You,” he spat. “You have cheated, you -”

“No,” Valjean interrupted, unflappably calm. “I have not cheated. I have won. And now, I intend to claim my prize and go.”

“Is that what you think?” Thénardier snarled, stumbling to his feet. He scrabbled frantically for his pistol, arm shaking in his rage, so that he might turn it upon Valjean. “You are going nowhere.”

“That is a very fool thing to try,” Valjean commented, which was the only warning Thénardier got before he lunged across the table.

Grabbing hold of Thénardier’s wrist, Valjean forced the weapon toward the ceiling; in the struggle, Thénardier pulled the trigger. The discharge left Valjean with a ringing in his ears, but the bullet struck stone and did no more harm than to send slivers of brick flying. With a sharp tug, Valjean wrenched the gun from Thénardier’s grip. He spun it around, and Thénardier tripped over himself in his haste to back away.

There was a moment of silence, Valjean holding the gun, and Thénardier looking on in disbelief. Then Valjean caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. Turning to look, he found the Patron-Minette half-risen from their corner; a single glare and sweep of the pistol was sufficient to return them to sitting.

Never lowering his stolen weapon for a moment, Valjean confiscated the key off of the tabletop. Next he inched his way to Javert’s side; the man had not spoken, nor scarcely even moved, in all that time. Lowly, Valjean said, “If you wish to be free of here, do not struggle.” So saying, he clasped Javert around the middle and hefted him head-first over his shoulder.

Javert hissed, “ _Valjean_ -” but Valjean snapped, “Be still!” and to his great surprise, Javert obeyed.

It was like that, the Inspector dangling limply on one side, the gun held firm on the other, that Valjean backed out of the chamber. Thénardier’s face grew stormier by the second, but his eyes flickered to the gun, and he did not move.

After the torchlight, the tunnel seemed especially dark, but Valjean did not wait for his eyes to adjust. Instead, the very moment they were clear, he gripped the Inspector more securely behind the knees and ran as fast as he could without slipping on the damp pavement. His breath came harder almost at once, though still Valjean did not break stride.

Only when he had gone what he judged to be a safe distance did Valjean pause. Then he slowed to a stop, allowing Javert to slide down onto his feet while taking pains to see that the man did not fall. Javert stumbled back against the wall with a muffled groan, his chin sagging to his chest.

Valjean felt for the _surin_ he kept folded in his pocket. With a flick of the blade, he knelt and sawed through the cord joining Javert’s legs together. The Inspector kicked away the scraps and straightened, only to sway as a wave of dizziness swept over him. Valjean caught him by the arm, and Javert froze at the touch.

A moment passed.

Then the man turned slightly, offering his bound wrists to Valjean in wordless expectation. Valjean cut through that rope as well, grimacing at the cruel marks left in the Inspector’s skin, which were visible even in what little light there was.

When he was free at last, Javert tore the blindfold from his eyes, blinking almost comically; the tunnel, Valjean supposed, was nearly as hard to see without the blindfold as it was with it. Javert opened his mouth to speak, but then thought better of whatever he planned to say, lapsing into silence. He stomped his feet to restore the sensation to them, and gave Valjean a hard look.

“Are you hurt?” Valjean inquired. “Besides your wrists, I mean. Those will need bandaging later.”

“I am fine,” Javert snapped. “Merely bruised.”

“Here,” Valjean said, aware they had not the time for petty quarreling. He thrust the pistol into Javert’s hands, and for a moment the Inspector seemed nearly about to drop it.

“You are giving me a gun.” It was a statement, but it came out a question, made all the more strange by the fact that Javert addressed him as _‘vous’_.

“You know better what to do with it than I,” said Valjean. “I would not use it if it came to a fight, and -”

He was cut off by the sound of footsteps.

“They’ve found us,” Javert growled, cocking the weapon forcefully. “I will not - they cannot make me -”

“No,” said Valjean, his heart beginning to pound as he recognized the uniforms approaching in the gloom. “It is not Thénardier. Javert -” He turned, placing a hand again on the Inspector’s arm in supplication. “Please, though I know I have not the right to ask, still I must beg you - do not arrest me yet. Give me one hour, one, and then I will do whatever you wish.”

Javert looked at him then with the countenance of one attempting to divine the answer to a riddle quite beyond his wits. Finally, he gave a single, short nod.

When the pair of gendarmes reached them, the taller of the two lifted a lantern to stare suspiciously first at Valjean, then at Javert. “Who goes there?” he asked. The second man raised his musket for emphasis.

Stepping forward, Javert said haughtily, “I am Javert, Inspector First Class, on assignment from Monsieur Gisquet, Prefect of Police. Who are you?”

“Duval and Regnier,” replied the first man. “Eighth regiment. We heard what we thought was a gunshot, and came to investigate.”

“You heard rightly,” Javert informed him. “Go back up this tunnel and take the third left. Follow for about a half mile and you will find the gang of devils known as the Patron-Minette, if they have not already flown the coop.”

“And you, Inspector, what shall you do?” demanded the second man, scowling as if to catch him in some lie.

Javert was unimpressed. “I?” He half-glanced at Valjean and said, “I mean to get out of these damn sewers, for a start.”

At last, the gendarmes were satisfied. Javert repeated for them his instructions on where to go, and then they vanished again into the labyrinth of the tunnels.

“You know the way out?” Javert asked when they were alone.

Wordlessly, Valjean nodded.

“Good. Then let us be gone.”

Letting out a breath he had not known he was holding, Valjean motioned for Javert to follow. It was well he had taken such care to remember the path, for the tunnels were nigh on indistinguishable from one another. Once, he had to backtrack when a turn too early took them to a dead end; all the while, he expected a sharp reprimand, but Javert did not speak as they retraced their steps.

They walked at a good clip, though when they approached the outlet, Valjean could not help but hasten back into a run. Would Marius still be there? What if Thénardier had done something to the boy after all? What if he had died of his wounds while Valjean was away?

Valjean turned the corner, and there was the body just as he had left it. Crouching on his haunches, Valjean pressed a hand to Marius’ chest. The faintest of movements told him the boy yet lived. He might have wept with relief; the Lord had shielded him after all.

Only then did Valjean realize that he had left Javert behind in his haste. The Inspector staggered belatedly into the short tunnel, having to bow his head so as not to strike it on the low ceiling. There was an ashen cast to the man’s face, and he put a gloved hand against the wall to hold himself upright.

“Forgive me,” said Valjean, getting back to his feet. “I should have thought - You are hurt -”

“I am _fine_ ,” Javert insisted through gritted teeth. “Merely exhausted. How could I not be when those students left me tied to a post all night? And you, you must have the strength of a bear to be running still after all you have -” He stopped, perhaps realizing that his words were coming dangerously close to complimentary. “What wretch is that?” he asked instead, looking down at Marius.

“He is hurt,” said Valjean, which was not precisely an answer. “I must return him to his grandfather, in the Marais. My daughter thinks to marry him, and would be distraught if he should perish.”

“This boy was at the barricade,” Javert muttered, his eyebrows drawing together. “He is dead already.”

“Not quite,” said Valjean. “Will you help me?”

“Will I help you?” Javert barked. “What a question.”

And yet as Valjean took the key from where he had stowed it in his ruined trousers, Javert held out his hand. Caution made Valjean pause, but after all, Javert could easily have given him to the gendarmes and he had not. Valjean handed him the key.

Moving to the grating, the Inspector undid the heavy lock and pushed the bars open. As he did so, Valjean bent down and scooped Marius into his arms, falling forward at last onto the bank of the Seine.

Valjean sank to his knees, mindful still of all the places Marius was hurt. Locking the grating so it was shut tight once more, the Inspector said to no-one in particular, “I will call a fiacre,” only to turn about and walk up the path onto the quay.

Valjean, meanwhile, crawled to the river’s edge. He rinsed what muck he could from his face and hands, before cupping water in his palm and carrying it to pour between Marius’ parted lips. There was a long pause, and then the boy’s throat worked as he swallowed. Valjean murmured a quiet prayer of thanks, returning to the river to scoop water into his own parched mouth. He did not know for how long he drank greedily, but eventually he heard a clattering, and Valjean looked up to see a black carriage driving down the embankment from the street to the waterfront, pulled by a chestnut horse.

When the fiacre came to a halt on the gravel, the car door opened and Javert stepped out. He inclined his head at the carriage; Valjean was uncertain as to whether it was an invitation or an order, but he lifted Marius to his chest without saying a word and laid him carefully across the back seat.

“Address?” Javert asked tersely.

“The Rue des Filles du Calvaire, number six,” Valjean replied, his voice barely a whisper.

Javert seemed to hear him, however. He nodded, then jerked his head again at the carriage. That time, it was undoubtedly an order. Valjean climbed inside, sitting down beside Marius’ filthy shoes, while Javert conveyed the address to the driver. The leather seats were soft; as he sank into them, he found himself wishing they could have been hard planks, so as not to remind him of the little comforts he would soon be without.

With another rattle the car door opened, and Javert took his seat opposite Valjean as the carriage began to move slowly up the second embankment. He crossed his arms, his chin nearly disappearing into his collar. So it was that they rode in silence, an unlikely pair accompanied by a dying man. Valjean did not think about the bagne, or the inevitable death waiting for him there. He did not even think of Javert, his jailer and pursuer now having caught him at last. Instead, he thought of Cosette. Valjean hoped that Marius would live for her sake. Then she need not be lonely after he was gone. Perhaps it was better this way, that Javert take him now and remove him from the young lovers’ happiness.

So preoccupied was he that Valjean did not notice they had reached their destination until the carriage jostled to a stop. The houses of the Marais were stately, elegant white limestone carved with corbels and Greek festoons, but the lawn was empty and the shutters were drawn, for it had grown quite late indeed. The moment the vehicle ceased to move, Javert stepped down from the carriage. His arms were still crossed with impatience as Valjean followed, and Valjean hurried up to the door, rapping loudly on the wood.

The porter, when he answered, nearly bolted the door again at the sight of Valjean’s bedraggled appearance, but a hasty explanation caused him to stay his hand, and then everything happened very quickly as Marius was bundled inside and the housekeeper was sent almost in hysterics to fetch the doctor. When the commotion had subsided, and it remained only Valjean and Javert on the street, Valjean turned once more to the Inspector, a half-formed entreaty on his lips.

Javert interrupted, pointing at the carriage. “Get in.”

His final plea faded into nothingness, and it was with a heavy heart that Valjean dragged himself back to his seat in the fiacre. He was fortunate Javert had been so lenient in delivering Marius, he thought. And yet, he would have given anything to one last time lay eyes on his daughter’s sweet face, even if she were only sleeping. Valjean did not overhear what Javert said to the driver, he only noticed as the Inspector returned, the carriage setting off at a gentle trot.

With nothing now to drive him, Valjean found that he was trembling very slightly; he wondered whether Javert had noticed. They approached the police depot Valjean knew to be on the corner, but even as he was dreading the jerking stop of the vehicle, it continued onward, rolling past the depot and leaving it behind. What was Valjean to make of that? Perhaps Javert had his own office to visit. Perhaps he meant to take Valjean before the Prefect of Police himself. Any of these were possibilities.

Which is why when the carriage did ultimately come to a stop, it was on a street so unlikely, so improbable, that at first Valjean thought he had nodded off. Then he thought there had been a mistake. It could not be that Javert had brought him there by his own intent, for that would have been almost a kindness, and Javert was not kind.

He felt another shock go through him when Javert snapped, “Well? Are you getting out, or not?”

Valjean blinked. “I do not...”

“This is your address, isn’t it?” Javert continued. “The Rue de l’Homme Armé, number seven?”

“Y-yes,” Valjean stammered.

“Well, then.”

Stunned, disbelieving, Valjean scrambled down into the street. It was, as he had seen so impossibly through the window, his own street and his own apartment. There was the number seven in brass above the door, and there was the small picture window overlooking the yard. As if in a trance, he ascended the steps to the door, patting himself down for the key. He was too conscious of Javert climbing out of the fiacre behind him, and he came close to dropping the key twice as his fingers shook. Eventually, however, he was able to get the door open.

It was only after he stepped inside that Valjean discovered Javert had not followed him.

Looking back, Valjean frowned in bemusement. The Inspector was standing in the road - standing, watching, but assuredly not following. Valjean glanced up and down for any sign of life among the quiet houses and found none, the residents shuttered inside against darkness and gunfire. The shadows were long in the moonlight, all the broken street lamps shedding none of their customary illumination on the scene. Arriving at a decision, Valjean hesitated only briefly before returning down the path.

“Inspector,” he said, and Javert twitched as though woken from some reverie; Valjean had interrupted a thought, he could see that in Javert’s distracted manner, but he continued a little urgently, “You should not stand alone outside. The horse does not travel fast, and Thénardier or his men may have trailed after us here.”

Finally Javert seemed to focus. “Very well,” he said after a moment, and this time he accompanied Valjean up the front walk.

Valjean twisted the knob, pushing his way into the front room of the cramped living quarters. It was a far less cheerful sight than the house on the Rue Plumet, but only a few short days ago fleeing to his second address had seemed a necessary measure. Despite his best efforts, the police had found him; or more precisely, he had offered up to the police his location. Now he was inviting the police inside.

“Sit, if you like,” Valjean said, gesturing at the table and chairs which occupied the latter half of the room. “I would caution against the sofa, for I am afraid a mouse has chewed holes in the upholstery. The furniture was all bought second-hand.”

He did not know why he was telling Javert that. He did not know why he was saying anything at all, but Javert was silent, and that made it harder to stem the flood of nervous chatter welling up in his throat. The Inspector took a look around him as he entered, his cool gaze observing every detail.

“The housekeeper will be asleep,” Valjean murmured, more to himself than to Javert. “I shall put some water on.”

Against the back wall was a large fireplace, the glow of which cast the only light in the house. Its function was for cooking as well as heat, for the small apartment did not possess a stove. Valjean puttered about with the flighty effect of a bird, filling the kettle and hanging it over the coals. Javert slowly took a seat at the table, wearing an expression Valjean could not fathom. It did, however, remind him of something.

“Oh!” he said, and then he rummaged through cupboards until he found a roll of lint. “Here,” Valjean added, setting it at Javert’s place. “For your wrists, or any other wounds that might be troubling you.”

The Inspector looked at him for a long moment. Then he turned away to say, “I am fine, Valjean.” The words emerged more tired and with less sting than they had earlier.

Valjean swallowed. “I will just... be upstairs,” he said. “I won’t be long. You may come, of course, if you wish.”

Javert did not move from the chair he had claimed, the glow of the fire seeming to etch deeper the lines in his harsh face. Instead, it was only his dark eyes which followed Valjean up the steps, unblinking. Not until Valjean was nearly to the top of the landing did Javert speak.

“Valjean,” he said, and Valjean turned. Javert was frowning up at him, a slight dissatisfied pucker to his lips. “Change your clothes while you are at it. Those are...” He waved his hand vaguely. “Repulsive.”

Valjean glanced down at his mud-soaked dress and was forced to concur. A word of thanks rose in his throat, but the expression on Javert’s face stifled it. Instead, he bowed his head in a nod, and disappeared upstairs.

 

* * *

 

Inspector Javert was seated at Jean Valjean’s dining table. This was a perplexing state of affairs. Valjean was upstairs doing God-only-knew-what, and Javert was to all appearances waiting for someone to pour him tea from the kettle. Old instinct demanded he storm up the steps after the convict and see to it the man did not escape, or better yet to quit the charade altogether and arrest him as he should. More overpowering, however, was the new instinct which quietly insisted that Valjean was to be trusted. It kept him pinned to his chair quite as neatly as Thénardier’s ropes had.

He had never intended to come in. Before Valjean interrupted him, Javert was deciding on what best to do. The thought of leaving, of vanishing like a specter in the night, tempted him sorely. He knew not what he would do after, but at least he would be gone, far away from Valjean and all his wretched martyrdom. Yet still, Javert did not leave. He had hesitated, and in his hesitation, Valjean had returned to coax him inside. Why did he not leave at once, as he had told himself in the carriage that he would?

The answer was quick to present itself: he belonged to Valjean. The Inspector had wagered his life and lost. By rights, he should have been dead, or worse. Yet Valjean had persuaded Thénardier to instead make him a prize for the winning, a prize to which Valjean could not have had a fairer claim. Javert did not have the privilege of going, not unless Valjean said he should, but so far the man had said nothing of the kind.

He wondered what Valjean wanted with him. Briefly, Javert imagined a large hand again at his collar, only it was not Boulatruelle who held him but one whose curls were like polished silver, and the mouth on his neck was warm and soft, and -

The Inspector put a stop to that line of thought at once, his face heating monstrously. Well, he thought. Well. What was the use in speculating? He would just have to wait and see Valjean’s intentions for himself.

There was also the gun, he realized presently, which had been folded into a pocket of the Inspector’s greatcoat upon calling for a fiacre. The gun offered its own possibilities, ones which a sibilant voice seemed to whisper into Javert’s ear. Perhaps, he thought. Later.

Eventually a creak issued from the landing, and Javert looked up. Valjean stood on the topmost step, his hand resting on the banister. He had changed as Javert asked, and was dressed in cleanly pressed slacks, a waistcoat, and his shirtsleeves. It was unpresumptuous, simple attire, and he did not wear a topcoat. His cravat was tied, but hastily, the knot sitting uneven on his breastbone. Javert caught himself staring; he looked away, his throat strangely dry.

As Javert concentrated purposefully upon the door, the stairs let out a quiet groan, painting a portrait of Valjean’s slow descent. Then the noises ceased, and the nape of Javert’s neck prickled with the sensation of being watched. He turned.

Valjean stood alongside the table, his eyes downcast. “It was... thoughtful of you to bring me here, Inspector,” he said.

Javert was grateful he had not said, ‘kind’.

“I have set my affairs in order,” Valjean continued, “and now that is finished. I am ready.” He extended his wrists, lashes fluttering against his cheeks as he closed his eyes.

What was the Inspector to make of that? Dimly, he remembered Valjean saying something similar down in the sewers, as though he believed Javert still had the power or the will to arrest him. It did not make any sense. None of it did.

When Javert had sat gaping for some moments without moving, Valjean looked up again, forehead creasing in a frown.

“Is something the matter, Monsieur?”

Javert’s own brow pinched in response. “And where is all this formality coming from?” he muttered. “Before it was only ‘Javert’, now it is ‘Monsieur’? Bah.” He gave a slight shake of his head and met Valjean’s gaze steadily. “The kettle is certainly hot enough by now.”

At first, Valjean did not appear to understand. Then his eyes widened, and he hurried to the hearth. A teacup clattered against a saucer, and a moment later there was a hot drink sitting beside Javert’s elbow. Valjean returned to standing, shifting his weight awkwardly on his heels.

Javert gazed at him in exasperation. “Pour yourself a cup as well and sit. Valjean, you are a terrible host.”

A curious succession of emotions passed over Valjean’s face then, first confusion, then surprise, and then a wry sort of humor.

“Well,” he said as he went to fetch another teacup, “you are my first visitor in many years, so forgive me if I am out of practice.”

Valjean returned with a cup for himself, faltering only a moment as he put his hand on the back of the chair adjacent to the Inspector’s. Then he took a breath, pulled out the chair, and was seated.

“Good,” said Javert, without knowing what he was referring to. He took a sip of his tea; it was scalding hot and he did not taste it. After a moment, Valjean did the same. The fire hissed and spit behind them as each gazed into his drink. A few times, Valjean seemed poised to ask a question, but never quite managed the words, and the silence went unbroken.

“You did not lie about your address.” Javert had been dwelling on this complicated truth for some minutes when at last he spoke.

Valjean gave him an uncertain nod.

Taking a long draught of his cooling tea, the Inspector went on, “You are waiting for me to arrest you.”

Again, Valjean nodded.

“Why?”

Valjean cocked his head to one side. “What do you mean?”

Snorting, Javert reminded him, “At the barricade, it was you who held the carbine, not I. You had no reason to let me go, much less to say where you lived.”

“Ah.” Valjean swallowed before he said, “Well, Javert, I suppose I was tired.”

“ _Tired_.”

“Tired, yes.” The look Valjean gave him was not quite reproachful, but it was different from his other expressions of self-righteous submission, and was therefore an improvement. “You are a rather exhausting man to run from.”

“I will take that as a compliment,” Javert said dryly, and Valjean’s mouth quirked in a way that resembled a smile. “Your timing is unfortunate,” Javert went on. “Had you but mentioned that a week ago, I would have arrested you happily. As it is, however, I think I cannot.”

The hand holding Valjean’s teacup dropped to the surface of the table. Hot liquid splashed over his fingers, but he failed to notice. “Javert, I do not understand.”

“Don’t you?” Javert laughed derisively. “Perhaps you do not, at that. After all, when have we ever understood one another?”

Valjean was very quiet as Javert went on, “I cannot arrest you. My life was forfeit until you won it from Thénardier. If you did not own my soul after the barricade, then you certainly do now. To arrest you is not only impossible, it is ridiculous.”

“You are mistaken,” Valjean said indistinctly. “Javert, whatever deal or wager you made, I do not possess you. You were yours the moment I set foot in that room. I never would have left you to suffer there, even had I lost Thénardier’s game.”

“You see?” said Javert with a strained laugh. “This is another reason I cannot arrest you. You are too damn... selfless.”

“One man cannot own another, Javert,” Valjean retorted. “Even you would surely agree that is unjust.”

“And you?” Javert said incredulously. “When the state owned you, was that just? If I turn you in tonight and your name is changed for a number, is _that_ just?” He did not know when he had gotten to his feet, only knew that he was standing with his hands braced against the tabletop, staring at the woodgrain in despair.

“Lower your voice, please,” Valjean implored with a nervous glance at the ceiling. “If Cosette should hear you...”

“Do not change the subject,” Javert growled, though he did temper his volume. “My duty tells me I must arrest you, and my conscience tells me I must not. You are the greatest thorn in my side, and you are the man at whose table I am the least deserving to sit. I might kneel at your feet like a dog, I might dispose of my life to once save yours, I might -”

His increasingly agitated words were cut short by Valjean, who now stood sharply as well.

“Javert, what are you saying?” he asked, his mouth hard but his eyes too bright by far.

It was with a wild, irrational air that Javert asked, “Do you know what Thénardier wanted of me? You do not, do you?”

The Inspector strode around the corner of the table, encroaching on Valjean’s place until Valjean took a half-step backwards and knocked against his chair. There he stopped, looking on a little warily as Javert reached out to grab a fistful of the man’s shirt. Javert felt it as the powerful body beneath tensed in alarm. Still Valjean did not resist as Javert tugged him closer, and then they stood within a hand’s breadth of one another. Javert’s chest was tight with emotion to which he was entirely unaccustomed.

“He wanted to humiliate,” Javert continued, voice barely above a whisper. He looked searchingly at Valjean’s face, scowling as if it would help him uncover the reasoning he sought, but the wide depths of Valjean’s startled eyes answered none of his unarticulated questions. “He wanted to degrade. He wanted to...”

Valjean made a small, whimpering noise in his throat. His hand rose to cover Javert’s where it was wrapped in his shirt but made no effort to remove it, despite that he could easily have thrown the Inspector aside. His eyes were still so wide, so helpless, yet so full of light where Javert knew only darkness. Javert opened his mouth to speak, and Valjean put his other hand against the Inspector’s shoulder; whether he meant to pull or push him away was unclear.

“He wanted...” The words came out disjointed, their meaning lost. Javert was dizzy, he did not know what he was saying anymore. “He wanted...” And then his fingers were curled around Valjean’s chin, and he was pulling their faces together, and his mouth was pressing against Valjean’s with all the desperation of a drowning man. Lips parting, Javert let go unspoken every fear, every anguished thought, every question that raked his untested conscience over a bed of coals. And within him, Javert felt the fracture in his soul heave and crack until it was a chasm, swallowing him whole.

Then an inconceivable thing happened. It seemed to Javert that Valjean, who had gone quite rigid, tipped his head the smallest degree to the side, and slackened the set of his jaw just slightly. And once the concession was made, it did not end there; his whole posture loosened, until Javert, his reason finally catching up with what distress had driven him to do, pulled back.

“I...” Javert swallowed, the words stopping as abruptly as they had started. “It is possible I have gone mad. I do not know why I...”

Valjean bore an expression that was equal parts astounded and unnerved, though as Javert tripped over his words, his cheeks went noticeably pink. “Think nothing of it,” he said. “It is forgotten.”

“I should go.” Javert’s throat was dry again, and he suddenly loathed himself for the way those few words caused it to constrict. “I should... I should go.”

He staggered backwards, and wanted to pretend it was fatigue which made him so unsteady on his feet. The Inspector had not got far, however, when he heard behind him:

“Javert.”

He willed himself to ignore it, the forlorn appellation, but his legs would not obey his orders, and he stopped where he stood midway between the dining table and an overstuffed armchair. Finally, he forced himself to turn. The astonishment had faded from Valjean’s eyes, and Javert discovered with a shock that Valjean looked quite as lost as Javert felt.

Valjean took a few tentative steps forward. “Wait until morning,” he said. “Thénardier may still be about.”

“The devil take Thénardier!” Javert spat vehemently. “I should never have come in! I should never have -”

Valjean reached out and caught him by the elbow; Javert fancied he could feel the heat of the man’s hand through his greatcoat.

“You have not bandaged your wrists,” Valjean commented. “You ought to tend to that. They will not heal like this.”

“And what do I care?” said Javert. He hated the concern in Valjean’s eyes, hated that it was genuine, hated that it brought back the feeling which had first led him to press his lips questingly to Valjean’s own. The man’s mouth was as soft as he had imagined. He glanced down and then quickly back up, but the slight raise of Valjean’s eyebrow told him he had been caught looking.

A dull flush crept up Javert’s neck; before he could pull away again, Valjean’s hand ventured higher. Rough treatment had left the Inspector’s queue disheveled, and strands of long, greying hair were falling out of their ribbon. Valjean carefully tucked one of these back behind Javert’s ear.

“Stay,” he said quietly, and Javert knew he could not do otherwise.

“If you insist,” Javert returned, fixated on the sensation of Valjean’s fingers not quite cradling the side of his head.

Valjean nodded gravely, as if by accepting his invitation, Javert had agreed to something of far greater gravitas. “There is a bed upstairs,” he said. “Take it.”

Javert scoffed. “And where will you sleep?”

“The sofa is comfortable enough.” Valjean’s wry humor returned. “My old bones will creak tomorrow no matter where it is I sleep.”

The Inspector was already shaking his head. “I will not put you out of your bed,” he said. “Sleep upstairs, Valjean. The sofa will do me no harm.”

Watching him with a look that was almost shrewd, Valjean said, “You will not slip out the door as soon as my back is turned?”

A breath of laughter escaped Javert at that. “Attentive as you are, I do not doubt you would hear even if I tried. I give my word I shall not, will that suffice?”

“It will suffice.” Valjean withdrew his hand, and Javert resisted the urge to lean forward into the fleeting touch. As he backed away, Valjean did not break eye contact. At the foot of the stairs, he paused.

“I will see you in the morning, Javert,” he said in an odd sort of tone.

“Until morning, then.” It came out less indifferent than Javert intended.

Valjean held his gaze a moment longer, seemingly on the brink of saying something else, but the words did not come. Instead, he nodded and took to the stairs, climbing to the second story.

Javert watched him go; what suspicion he had left was as worthless as the rest of his feelings, subsumed under the dull knowledge that his way forward was gone. Though Javert no longer wandered the sewers, his path was still shrouded, the chasm within him yawning and empty. He listened with his eyes closed as the sound of Valjean’s steady tread traveled up the steps, growing fainter until it reached the landing. The ceiling protested as Valjean turned down the hall, and finally there was the staccato rhythm of his moving about the bedroom.

Then the house was still.

Javert turned. He crossed the room to the door, put his hand on the knob - and latched it. The fool was so worried about Thénardier, but too distracted to lock his front door? Yet perhaps, Javert reflected, Valjean had not expected to be staying. He had expected to be taken away within minutes of his arrival, wearing chains.

Heavily, Javert collapsed into the sofa.

A weight against his thigh drew his eyes downward. The Inspector studied the bulge in his coat pocket, the outline of an idea beginning to take shape. With a carefulness born of habit, Javert slid his hand inside and pulled out Thénardier’s gun. The pistol was cheaply constructed but serviceable, grey steel with a wooden grip. He recalled how Valjean had all but thrown it at him, so wanting to be rid of it, and so trusting of Javert when the Inspector could have easily returned the balance of power to his favor. Of course, Javert had not done that. Perhaps Valjean had known he would not.

That was the thing, the thing which damned him. Valjean was a convict, a recidivist and a parole-breaker, and he had saved Javert’s life not once but twice. The first time it happened, perhaps - _perhaps_ \- Javert could have persuaded himself it was only because Valjean did not expect to leave the barricade alive, but the second? There was no accounting for that. Not when Valjean had the complete latitude to do as he pleased, and what he pleased was to do nothing but turn himself over to the Inspector’s authority.

He had not even struck Javert for the kiss, though he would surely have been well within his right.

The strangest part of all was how naturally the barrel fit against the hollow of his temple. Javert took a shaky breath, feeling acutely the point of connection between flesh and cold metal. An ounce of pressure on the trigger was all it would take to finish what he had started.

And then? Valjean would hear the shot and fear the worst. Possibly the sound would wake his daughter as well, and their housekeeper. They would come downstairs, only to be met by a grisly tableau illustrating for all to see the final, disturbed act of a police Inspector. Valjean would blame himself. He would not understand. The upholstery would also be ruined; Javert could not say why that was the thought which stuck out so clearly in his mind. He could not ruin Valjean’s hole-ridden upholstery.

It would be better to leave, whispered the voice in his head. He could find an alley to do it in, somewhere out of the way, somewhere his body would not be found for a few days. If anyone cared to investigate, they would only think Javert another casualty of the failed revolution. But that would mean breaking his word to Valjean, and Valjean would not be fooled. He would remember the gun, and he would know the truth.

Unbidden, Javert was reminded of the moment where the man had surrendered uncertainly to his desperate overture. And had Valjean’s hand tightened somewhat where it gripped Javert’s shoulder? That had been his imagination, surely. But he knew he had not invented the slight sigh against his mouth, nor the way Valjean’s shoulders slumped in what Javert supposed was resignation. Valjean had allowed the Inspector license, perhaps believing that this was what Javert demanded of him in exchange for his liberty. Yet that could not have been farther from the truth; enough of Javert’s integrity remained intact that he would never consider such a cruel arrangement. Valjean was free. His own actions were the result of something far more pathetic.

‘Pathetic’ was also the word which came to mind as he allowed the gun to drop back to his lap. He told himself it was because Valjean should not be left with the mess. He told himself there were other ways it could be done. He told himself there was always tomorrow.

Setting the pistol upon the coffee table, Javert peeled off his greatcoat. Then he curled up on the sofa, draping the coat over him like a blanket. His eyes stung; it was easier to believe it was the strain of the last three days catching up with him, though that was not the cause at all. Sleep was slow in coming, and when it arrived, it brought with it an oblivion that was like suffocating.

***

The sunlight which filtered through the front window was warm and cheerful, a far cry from how Javert felt. He woke stiff and sore, at first unable to remember where he was, and then remembering all at once with much displeasure; groaning into the cushion, he wiped the grittiness from his eyes. In the light of day, the mottled yellow and brown patches around his wrists were plain to see, as were the red, chafed tracts left by the rope, aching where they brushed against his shirtsleeves. Rolling over, Javert grit his teeth against other hitherto-unnoticed pains, one of which he was certain must stretch up the entire length of his ribs. Then he paused as the sounds of a sizzling fry pan told him he was not alone.

Caution now extending to reasons beyond his injuries, Javert pushed himself slowly into a sitting position and looked over the arm of the sofa. There was an older woman bent over the hearth, her dark hair pulled back in a bun. She was pushing slices of ham around in a skillet, and Javert surmised that this must be Valjean’s housekeeper. She paid him no attention whatsoever, apparently unconcerned by the presence of a stranger on the sofa, and Javert relaxed marginally. Perhaps Valjean had forewarned her that he was there.

This thought inspired a new anxiety, however, and the Inspector looked about him. Valjean was nowhere to be seen. Sighing, Javert dropped his head into his hands. It was just as well; he did not think he could face Valjean yet. The pistol still resided tauntingly on the table, glimmering in the pale morning sun.

Then there came the pattering of light feet on the stairs, and Javert’s head shot up in alarm as he recalled with sudden dismay whose home it was he intruded upon.

“Papa?” queried a voice like a songbird.

Javert froze.

“Papa,” the voice continued, drawing closer. “Where have you - Oh!”

He could not bring himself to look at her. Frantically, Javert searched for an excuse, a vague word or two, anything at all which he might offer by way of explanation. The girl - _Cosette_ , he reminded himself, for it could only be she - did not wait for him to speak, circling around the sofa to get a better look at her uninvited guest. She did not seem nearly as apprehensive as one ought upon finding an unknown man in the house, merely inquisitive rather than frightened, and Javert dropped his gaze to his knees before he could meet her eyes.

“Are you well, Monsieur?” Cosette asked.

Javert cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “My apologies, Mademoiselle, for the incursion. I arrived here with your father late last night.”

“Papa is home!” the girl cried with elation. “Oh, thank goodness, I have been so worried! Won’t you say what happened, Monsieur?” Yet before Javert had to stammer through an answer to that question, Cosette interrupted, “But I am being terribly rude - you have only just awoken, and I have not even introduced myself.”

Javert forced himself to look at her as the girl curtsied; she wore a plain but becoming blue gown, and her blonde curls were pulled back in the anticipation of a bonnet. She looked altogether like a proper young lady, not the daughter of a prostitute.

“My name is Cosette Fauchelevent,” said the girl, straightening. “And yours?” She regarded him expectantly.

“I am called Javert,” was Javert’s automatic reply. He could not comprehend how it was that a child raised in the household of a convict should look so much like any bourgeois girl to whom he might tip his hat on the street. “Inspector First Class.”

A shadow passed over Cosette’s face. “Inspector...?” she repeated, folding her hands in front of her. “Has something happened?”

Javert blinked. He had rattled off his rank by nothing more than rote, but of course it would trouble this girl who had spent her life dodging the shadows of policemen. “No,” he answered, though many things had happened; it was queer how easily the lie came to him. “Nothing like that. I simply brought him here, and he insisted that I stay.”

Cosette laughed, shaking her head. “That is like Papa,” she declared. “Would you care for some breakfast, Monsieur Javert?”

Javert’s ribbon had come loose again in the night, and his hair fell down his back in an unseemly tangle. Pulling his fingers through the errant strands until they were returned to neatness, he frowned and cinched the knot tight. “I ought to be -” he began, but was interrupted again by Cosette, who raised her head in wonder.

“Papa!” she exclaimed, running to the bottom of the stairs. Javert looked over his shoulder, and there indeed was Valjean, stopped midway between floors. The man’s eyes flickered from Javert to his daughter with something akin to fear, but whatever his concern, it dissolved into surprise as Cosette dashed up the stairs to wrap her arms around his middle.

“Where have you _been?_ ” she scolded. “You were gone, not so much as a note, and Toussaint and I waited and waited but you did not come home!” She took firm hold of his arm, marching him down to the table where the housekeeper was laying out four place settings.

Valjean looked more than slightly guilt-stricken at this declaration, but rather than reply he merely glanced once at Javert and followed meekly after his daughter. She settled him in a chair, and then flit about to fetch linen napkins and a pitcher of water. A vase of flowers was transported from the gentleman’s chest in the corner to the center of the table, as Cosette declared that they ought to add a little cheer to the room, “on account of their guest”.

At that, Valjean looked again across the room to the sofa.

“Ah, Javert,” he said, flushing slightly. Javert recalled the night before, and then he too found himself flushing. “Won’t you join us?” Valjean continued, making an abortive gesture at the neighboring chair.

Javert rose, feeling his legs protest mightily but ignoring the discomfort with his usual rigid discipline. Less easy to ignore was the way Valjean had not quite looked him in the eye, but Javert supposed that if he were to assign blame it would have to belong entirely to himself for his own inexplicable actions. The Inspector took the proffered place at the dining table as the housekeeper heaped a hearty meal in front of him. It would be improper to refuse, and so he did not, though he was unconvinced that his stomach would take well to food; he had little in the way of appetite.

Cosette, as she settled herself, had not once stopped chattering. “I am sorry we quarreled, Papa,” she said. “Is that why you left? You must be terribly upset with me. If it is true we are bound to go to England, then I will go.”

Javert paused, his knife hovering over a slice of ham. Go to England? What nonsense was that?

Valjean had also looked up at this pronouncement, his face adopting a new color reminiscent of spoiled cream. “There is something I must tell you in that regard, my dear,” he said. “We shall not go to England. I have given it some thought, and we may remain in Paris.” He said all this without looking at Javert once, which the Inspector thought was perhaps deliberate.

Cosette’s face lit up with a rapturous joy. “Oh, that is wonderful news!”

Her father’s countenance remained serious. “There is more that I must share,” he said, and some of the glow faded from Cosette’s features. Valjean looked at his daughter levelly. “I am told,” he went on, “that there is a young man in the Marais who was grievously injured upon the barricades. He yet lives, however, and in his delirium the only word which he speaks is your name.”

“Marius!” Cosette gasped, only to clap her hands over her mouth, going quite pink with embarrassment.

“You need not worry,” Valjean said gently, though there was a sadness in his eyes which Javert did not miss. “It is plain you care for this boy, and I would see you happily together. The doctors cannot say yet whether he will recover, but they are doing all they can.”

“I must go to him at once!” Cosette cried, rising from her chair. “Papa, say you will take me. He needs me at his side!”

Valjean shook his head. “Not yet, my treasure. It is no place for visitors, not until his infection has healed. But you may make lint, and I will carry it to the house every day, and ask after him for you.”

“Oh!” Cosette had, in a matter of minutes, traveled from rapture to despair to the bravery of forbearance. She nodded, wiping her eyes upon her handkerchief, but Javert turned to Valjean. How was it possible he knew so well the boy’s condition? The Inspector scowled as he imagined Valjean slipping out of the house before dawn, crossing the city in the twilight hours to check that the young rebel had survived the night, all while Javert slept mindlessly unaware. Yet Valjean had come back, even after everything Javert had done.

Their meal was somber after that, and Cosette ate quickly, announcing she would retire to her room where she might sit and sew bandages. The housekeeper, whom Javert had gathered was called Toussaint, accompanied her. Exercising his methodical attention to cleanliness, Javert began to gather the dishes from the table, removing them to the sideboard. Valjean did not speak; his expression was distant, and Javert found himself wondering the man’s thoughts.

As he moved back to the table, stacking up the emptied plates, Valjean reached out almost absently for Javert’s hand. The Inspector stiffened at the touch, though he did not prevent Valjean from turning his hand over, palm up, nor from tracing delicately one of the red welts marring his pulse.

Holding still under Valjean’s gentle inspection, Javert could not dislodge the feeling in his breast as of something trapped fluttering. “If you are about to chide me again for my injuries,” he began, “no, I have not bandaged them.”

Valjean shook his head, a tiny smile lighting his face. “You are the most stubborn man I have ever met,” he said.

“I assure you, the feeling is mutual.”

A bubble of laughter escaped Valjean at that, and Javert found his own features twisting into a crooked smile.

“I would help if I can,” Valjean continued, looking up. “Will you allow me?”

“What a question,” Javert murmured.

“Here,” said Valjean, getting to his feet. “Sit on the sofa, the light is better.”

Affecting a stride more casual than he felt, Javert crossed to the other side of the room, where he sat on the very edge of the sofa cushion. He was joined a moment later by Valjean, who brought with him a roll of long cloth strips.

“Your sleeves,” Valjean reminded him, and Javert cursed lowly as he fumbled to undo his cuffs. Then, rolling the shirt to his elbows, the Inspector tried to look at anything that was not Valjean, the lint, or the marks upon his arms. His eyes settled on the gun, which had not moved from its place on the table. Valjean followed his gaze, and Javert watched the man’s forehead crease, but mercifully he did not ask, and Javert did not offer any explanation. Then Valjean sat beside him, and it was impossible to ignore the warm body a few inches from his own.

“That looks very painful,” Valjean said quietly, taking hold of Javert’s hand again.

“I’ve had worse.” The subdued response came as Javert was still faced towards the table. His fingers twitched at the brush of callused digits over his knuckles, but he forced himself to endure the touch that was at once too light and too familiar. Then the first strip of fabric was laid across his abraded skin, and Javert could not prevent his hissing intake of breath.

At once, Valjean was all apologies, and Javert was left with no choice but to shift to face him.

“Valjean,” he said, only to correct himself as the man’s eyes darted nervously toward the stairs. “ _Fauchelevent_. I am not made of glass. Stop your fretting.”

“I do not mean to hurt you,” Valjean said.

“I am aware,” the Inspector replied grimly. “At this point, I am quite unable to count the number of opportunities you have had, and yet not taken.”

Valjean still seemed unable to continue, one hand holding Javert’s arm aloft, the other clinging to the end of the bandage. His gaze was intent, and Javert tried not to fidget under the close regard. “I suppose that may be.”

“It is best if you wrap it,” Javert informed him, adding with a sardonic twist to his lips, “There will be some discomfort, but I believe I can manage.”

“Ah? Oh, yes.” Valjean returned to coiling the material carefully around Javert’s forearm, and the Inspector took controlled, even breaths that did not betray even the slightest hitch as Valjean’s fingers occasionally grazed against skin that was raw. How many hours had he spent in bondage, only to be rescued again and again by this man?

Movement on the staircase drew Javert’s gaze; Cosette held her skirts as she took the steps down two at a time. Hurrying across the kitchen, she hunted through the linen cabinet until she found several white tablecloths. These Cosette tucked under her arm, no doubt to meaning to ruin them for the sake of crafting more dressings, but as she put her foot back on the bottom step, she stopped for a moment, turning to look curiously at where her father’s head was bent close to the Inspector’s. Javert treated her to a glower, but far from sending the girl scampering, Cosette made a noise behind her hand that sounded suspiciously like a giggle, and only then did she vanish the way she had come.

In her absence, Valjean looked up, his handiwork on the first wrist nearly complete. “Javert,” he said. “I have been wanting to ask about...” He trailed off with an apologetic sort of shrug.

“Ah.” Javert swallowed. “That. I do not know why I acted as I did, and I do not expect your pardon. I can only say that I -”

“Javert.”

The Inspector stopped, his unfinished statement hanging in the air between them.

“What did you mean by it?”

Javert frowned. “Mean by it?”

The tips of Valjean’s ears turned red, but he resolutely held Javert’s gaze as he explained, “After I laid down last night, I could not stop thinking of... well.”

“Oh,” said Javert.

“And it was not... disagreeable.”

“Oh,” Javert said again, but softer.

“But you see, I have to wonder what it meant,” Valjean continued, leaning forward. “If it were an accident, or because you thought you owed me... _that_ , then it is different than if you wished...”

“You have stopped speaking sense,” Javert muttered. “If I wished what?”

Valjean had grown very close indeed, and Javert could not suppress a shiver as a hand cupped his whiskered cheek. He was one who knew little of tenderness, but that was the only word which the Inspector could ascribe to the absurd expression on the other man’s face. Still there was a beat as Valjean hesitated to proceed, and Javert felt the same uncertainty echoed in the stutter of his breath. Then Valjean, his eyes alight with a sentiment Javert could not name, brought their mouths together. His lips were cool and dry, and pressed upon Javert’s as light as a spring breeze.

At first, Javert could not think. And then, he thought that he must in fact be going mad. It could not be that Valjean was choosing this, could not be that Javert was bracing his hand upon the man’s knee. The world was upside-down, everything backwards, and still Valjean was kissing him, and still Javert was incapable of pulling away. He felt a tremble in the fingers caressing his cheek, and then Valjean moved back, instead leaning his forehead against Javert’s.

“Ah.” Javert’s words came out scarcely audible. “I see.”

“So,” said Valjean.

The Inspector glanced down at the ravel of bandages on his wrist, feeling the susurrus of Valjean’s breath against his skin.

“I think,” he said carefully, “that you are correct. It is not disagreeable.”

A faint blush spread over Valjean’s face. “I could do with some more tea,” he announced, averting his gaze.

“You may as well pour two cups.” The Inspector straightened, pushing the hair from his eyes. “That is, if you do not mind my staying.”

Valjean’s shy smile was answer enough.

“Who would have thought,” murmured Javert, “that all this could come of playing bouillotte?”

“Indeed,” said Valjean softly. “Perhaps I shall have to play more often.”

Javert closed his fingers over Valjean’s. “Perhaps we will, at that.”


End file.
